…is a book that, when you’re all done reading it, you wish the author that wrote it was a terrific friend of yours and you could call him up on the phone whenever you felt like it. –JD Salinger, “Catcher in the Rye”

I read this book in a few hours, which is something I have not been able to do for a while. Somewhere in the middle, I fell asleep and had a dream wherein Tina Fey was instructing me on how to get a dozen doughnuts and keep them all to myself. (The recommended technique was to transport said doughnuts by car to a second location that also sells doughnuts. And then to eat the doughnuts in your car. Turns out Tina Fey can’t drive. Otherwise, I think it is suitably Liz Lemonish.

This took me a very long time to read, especially for such a slim book. It really resonated with me and the complex gender I live. Bergman performs a chivalristic butchness that is aware of how problematic it can be for a masculine-gendered person to want care for feminine-gendered people. Ze talks about hir love of femmes, on having hir butchness nurtured by femmes, on getting to nurture young butches. It’s all touching and left me with a lot to think about. I’d recommend it, but I also wouldn’t be surprised if it took you a few months to plod though, too (or if you read it in an hour).